INDIANAPOLIS — Five years later, after the memories have gotten a little fuzzy and the teams have changed, after Andrew Luck has overcome a career-threatening shoulder injury and the Kansas City Chiefs have moved from Alex Smith to Patrick Mahomes, the big moments still jump to mind.

A Luck interception at the start of the second half, a mistake that put the Colts in a 38-10 hole. Robert Mathis ripping the ball from Smith’s hands, T.Y. Hilton coming free for the game-winner, as the scoreboard read Colts 45, Chiefs 44.

And above all, Luck on the move, scooping up a Donald Brown fumble that bounced off of a lineman’s helmet, diving into the line and bouncing off of his right foot, leaping into the end zone with his arm outstretched for the touchdown that signaled to everybody that the Colts were really going to pull this off, really going to come all the way back from a 28-point deficit to beat the Chiefs.

“There are some really good memories from that game,” said Luck of the second-biggest playoff comeback in NFL history, behind only the 32 points his coach, Frank Reich, overcame when he was quarterbacking Buffalo. “There are also some not-so-good memories from that game. We dug ourselves quite the hole.”

Indianapolis Colts Andrew Luck spikes the ball after his fourth quarter touchdown against the Kansas City Chiefs in the first round of the NFL playoffs, Lucas Oil Stadium, Indianapolis, Saturday, January 04, 2014. The Colts won 45-44.(Photo: Robert Scheer/IndyStar)

Luck, in typical Luck fashion, is alluding to the three interceptions he threw on Jan. 4, 2014, the day he pulled off the biggest comeback of his career and prompted then-General Manager Ryan Grigson to compare him to Michael Jordan. Only Luck could think back on that game and weigh the bad as equally as the good.

All the memories are bad for the Chiefs.

“We didn’t play well enough and didn’t coach well enough,” Kansas City coach Andy Reid said. “We needed to do a couple different things in all areas.”

For Kansas City, Luck’s comeback is only one memory among many, a particularly bad nightmare in the middle of decades of playoff pain, a period punctuated by bad memories at the hands of the Colts. Indianapolis is 4-0 in the playoffs against Kansas City, and just about every loss has been a heartbreaker.

There was the Lin Elliott game in 1996, when the Chiefs kicker missed three field goals in the frigid cold, including the game-tying attempt from 42 yards, causing a 13-3 team to be bounced out of the playoffs. There was the no-punt game in 2004, when another 13-3 Chiefs team with Super Bowl hopes found itself unable to stop Peyton Manning long enough to advance. Manning knocked off a 9-7 Chiefs team on his way to the Super Bowl three years later.

“Listen, I don’t know the history of that, I haven’t really followed that,” Reid said. “I’m good in that area.”

Indianapolis was all but dead and buried, until the quarterback and the stars around him started making plays.

>>Mathis bearing down on Smith from behind: “You always remember Robert Mathis’ strip-sacks, because you grew up hearing about them, and then you get to see them live,” Luck said.

>>Luck diving over the top of the pile: “That’s obviously a highlight they still show,” Adam Vinatieri said. “Awfully dang athletic play.”

>>Hilton's game-winning 64-yard touchdown catch: Luck standing in the huddle, on the verge of something miraculous, looking across the huddle and telling Hilton to “Run his (expletive expletive) off.”

“He launched it,” Hilton said.

Saturday, the upset-minded Colts head into Arrowhead Stadium to take on Mahomes and the offensive juggernaut that seems like Reid's best hope for that elusive Super Bowl title. Will all of the history matter?

“I doubt it,” Vinatieri said. “Most of the guys on this team weren’t in any of those games, obviously. There’s a couple of us that played in the last one, but most of those were a long time ago.”

Kansas City is obviously different. This is another Chiefs juggernaut, a team that has finally found an MVP-caliber quarterback, an otherworldly talent Kansas City is counting on to erase decades of disappointment. Mahomes is supposed to be the man who can end the Chiefs' pain.

Maybe it matters for the Colts. Even though most of the names and faces have changed on both sides, the quarterback who engineered that unbelievable comeback is still playing in Indianapolis, and he looks better than ever.

Former Colts punter Pat McAfee said the other day that when Luck was injured last season, he kept wondering if Luck could get back to that level, to the moment he was flying through the air, reaching for the goal line with his team's hopes in his hand.

Luck’s back now.

“I don’t think you can correlate this team to that team in any way, other than we’ve got some guys on this team that never give up and keep fighting,” Vinatieri said. “That’s what we’re hoping to do this weekend.”

Helps to have a quarterback who’s already proven he can make the impossible happen in the playoffs.